Exhausted ballot
Ballot exhaustion in RCV
A ballot becomes exhausted when a voter:
- Exhausted choices: a voter can list their preferences such that when applied to a runoff round it is for a candidate who is already eliminated - the vote is taken out of the election
- Overvotes - example: voter accidentally ranks two candidates as their first choice
- Undervotes - example: voter ranks only one candidate on their ballot and that candidate is eliminated from the contest before the final round
This article of focusing on the first category.
Exhausted Choices
Ballot exhaustion occurs when a ballot is no longer countable in a tally as all of the candidates marked on the ballot are no longer in the contest.
An exhausted choice occurs when a voter ranks only candidates that are eliminated from a race.
For clarity - it is better to ignore overvotes and undervotes in the first round of tabulation as “exhausted votes” because voters could make the same mistake on a ballot in an election decided by plurality.
In other words, votes that are exhausted in the second and subsequent rounds of tabulation are purely a consequence of using ranked-choice voting method tabulation algorithm.
similar and confusing terms
- spoiled ballots
- over-voted
- under-voted
- inactive choices
- disqualified ballots
- discarded ballots
- exhausted choices
- spent ballots
- wasted votes